As the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon forest plays a pivotal role in regulating the earth’s temperature and climate by removing and storing vast amounts carbon dioxide. Over the past decades, deforestation in the Amazon have contributed to increasing global carbon emissions, as well as adverse impacts to local watersheds and wildlife habitat.

Carbon Opportunity

Carbonfund.org is a U.S.-based foundation that engages with companies and individuals to reduce and offset their climate impact. In 2011, Carbonfund made a strategic decision to develop a portfolio of carbon offset projects to save threatened rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon. It focused its efforts in Acre, Brazil where recent paving of a highway and new secondary roads have increased pressures to deforest land for cattle ranching (the largest driver of deforestation in Acre).

TerraCarbon Solution

Carbonfund’s plans to reduce deforestation included working with communities to improve agricultural practices and land titling, increasing forest monitoring, and providing incentives for conservation. For Carbonfund, the development of a carbon project was critical to funding these activities.

Conservation Results

Over the course of the past five years, TerraCarbon has assisted Carbonfund with the design and monitoring of 4 separate REDD projects that are now registered with the VCS and CCBA. The projects protect more than 350,000 acres of rainforest and have already reduced GHG emissions by 5 million tons. Through offset sales to voluntary buyers and its donors, Carbonfund is funding its work to reduce deforestation and protect the Amazon, its wildlife and the communities that depend on it.